Where extraordinary becomes eccentric

The Wall Street Journal finally has a new editor, Mr Thomas is replacing Mr Brauchli who was pressured to resign last month. Even though the nomination was approved by the special committee that should oversee Journal’s editorial integrity (the committee was created after Rupert Murdoch took over the newspaper), the way in which the paper is heading is disastrous.

Mr. Thomson’s appointment is expected to lead to bigger changes at the Journal. The paper has already seen a shift in focus since the News Corp. acquisition, putting more emphasis on shorter news stories and general news. Mr. Murdoch wants the Journal to compete more directly with the New York Times.

The point is that the readers of WSJ don’t want to have a NYT-clone. At least I don’t want to. If I longed for the reporting style and topics of NYT, I would go and get it, but the same applies for WSJ. Taking away my favorite long stories and complex technical and fundamental analyses will rather cause me to cancel the subscription and look elsewhere.

My friend complained to me a few weeks ago that her upcoming visit to the Czech Republic will ruin her budget. The complaints came in mid-February, when the dollar was in the middle of a free fall. The times of lavish spendings she remembered so vividly, the times when you’d get 23 Korunas for a dollar, were a history.

Thankfully, the friend was slightly exaggerating. If you come here for a few weeks, you won’t feel any substantial impact on your wallet, even if you stick solely with eating overpriced meals (that is $10+/lunch) and drinking excessive amounts of underpriced alcohol. Coming to Europe for a whole semester is another story; then you might consider cutting some expenses (Starbucks coffee?).

That seems to upset the American college students who are considering studying abroad. The unfavorable EUR/USD exchange rate is thus causing them to turn their backs to London and Paris and head to Africa instead. As today’s WSJ article says:

“We’re sending an unprecedented number of students on an arts program to Mali” in western Africa, says Eric Singer, Goucher’s associate dean of international studies.

I don’t get this. Perhaps I am too conservative, too focused on the post-graduation career options, but I can’t figure out why people want to go Mali and study its… art (I agree that “an unprecedented number” might mean 2, a shocking 100% increase of a usual situation where one student decides to travel to the Sahelian country, but still…)? My perception of money is apparently different from that of other students. I am willing to pay $35,000 worth of annual tuition (or its fraction - laud the inventor of scholarships!), but only there is a reasonable potential of a return on the investment. Regrettably, neither the current nor the potential future demand for commercial sharing (i.e. teaching) the newly acquired knowledge of Malian culture currently doesn’t justify the investment. Can anyone email me with an enlightening explanation of this — economically irrational — behavior?

But maybe after a year at Gettysburg I too will long for escaping the educational system and will leave for an adventure to Africa or Southeastern Asia, but right now I am puzzled.